We made it back! The flight was hard, about as hard as you would imagine flying traveling 20+ hours with an active toddler boy would be. We’d do it again though, because having T1 around brought That Husband’s family so much joy.

I have over 2500 images to sort through (sometimes I don’t even have that many after a full wedding day!), and I took pages and pages of notes about the hotels we stayed at, where we ate, the things we saw, what we loved most, and what we will do differently in the future. I’m really looking forward to sharing it with all of you.

The Duomo in Florence, as seen from Giotto's bell tower

Our second to last day in Poland we took family photos in the backyard. This shot of all three of us genuinely laughing makes me so happy!

And a new profile picture for me, taken by TH. You’ll see this picture all over the internet (Formspring, Twitter, Facebook) for the next little while.

My mom is coming in to town on Thursday, I have a wedding on Saturday, and the pressures of real life are building up once again so it’s going to be a while before I can get to everything. I’ll leak favorite photos every once in awhile between now and then.

Oh and I have another giveaway coming up on Thursday! Check back then for more details.

Going along with my post on trials a few weeks ago, here is an excellent list of phrases to use, and phrases to avoid, when you’d like to reach out to someone in need. Based on recent familial experiences, I can tell you these really stood out to me as being the truth:

To avoid

1. WHAT CAN I DO TO HELP?

They already feel like a burden. Listing off their needs only compounds that feeling.

3. DID YOU TRY THAT MANGO COLONIC I RECOMMENDED?

If the person has been ill for awhile, they have probably spent a considerable amount of time researching and hanging out at the office of several different providers. If you do feel like you have to tell them about a miracle solution that worked for your friend or your aunt, offer up the suggestion once and then let it be.

To use

1. DON’T WRITE ME BACK.

I’ve actually personally experienced how awesome it is to hear this one. Mrs. Corn sent me a lovely package filled with toys for T1, and explicitly wrote that I didn’t have to write her a thank you for the gift. The toys were awesome, we’re still using some of them today, but that little note was the part I appreciated most.

2. I SHOULD BE GOING NOW.

Don’t overstay your welcome. Unless the person is talking non-stop, a shorter visit is better than a longer one.

As you can tell, I have this topic on the brain lately. If you have suggestions that aren’t on the NYT list, I’d love to hear them!

I’ve seen all sorts of challenges floating around Pinterest, including this one that I bookmarked for future reference. I want to do them, but feel like it’s never the right time to start (always a reason to procrastinate, even when it comes to something fun!). I haven’t been shooting much professionally, and so I’m not seeing as much forward progress as I’d like in my abilities. So when I saw Our Wired Lives tweeting about a photography challenge she’s hosting with Ali, I decided to comment and say I’d join in because I knew this would give me a little push artistically.

We’ll be starting on October 1st.

Source: whitepeachphoto.com via Merissa on Pinterest via Our Wired Lives

Would you like to join us in the challenge? If so, comment below and I’ll send your email address to Our Wired Lives so she can create a master participant list. Don’t stress about creating a magazine-worthy work of art each day, this is supposed to be fun, and push us all a little bit. No dSLR required for this either, your point-and-shoot can handle these challenges just fine. And I admit, I don’t know that I’ll be publishing a new photo each day (I’ll take them 30 days in a row, but I might publish a weekly wrap-up each Monday because my editing time isn’t always that fast).

I’m thinking about writing some tutorials for the trickier concepts. If you would like a tutorial for a certain day let me know which ones I should be devoting some time to!

Source

I really want this. What would we make it say? Maybe TH’s last name+house.

The elections are still a year away. It feels like they do nothing but talk about election 2012 lately. With everyone constantly coming out with this reason why that person sucks, and that reason this thing will fail, it’s nice to know there are website like Politificat keeping it real (and keeping me in the know (the actual know found in the land of truthville, not the village of hyperbole and the valley of fiction).

I particularly like looking through the “pants on fire” statements.

I always love to hear what Donald Trump has to say (because he is completely ridiculous).

“The people that went to school with (Barack Obama), they never saw him, they don’t know who he is.”

Pants on fire.